Ralph Curschmann

Ralph Curschmann was a citizen of the Federal State of Austria at the time of the Anschluss with Nazi Germany in 1938. Curschmann was a wealthy citizen of Salzburg and a supporter of the Fatherland Front and Austrian nationalism, and he attended the Salzburg Festival in 1938, where he was moved by Captain Georg von Trapp's nationalist performance of the folk song "Edelweiss" in defiance of the Nazis. Curschmann joined him and the audience in singing the stirring cry of defiance against the Nazi Party.